Label:
XL Recordings
Release Date:

Thing is, I received this album a little while ago, but I haven’t managed to review it yet. Why? Well, because there’s something quite indescribable about it. It’s just odd. “Piss off! You’re a music journalist!” (In the very loosest sense, I hasten to add) you cry! Alright, this is the way I see it...

Capitol K is the man known to the Inland Revenue as Kristian Craig Robinson. His one-man electronica act has been putting tunes together for the last five years, starting with four tracks and dictaphones and now progressing onto something slightly more advanced, whilst still keeping the naïve gentle beauty that has become K’s trademark. Think Boards of Canada but without that slightly unnerving Wickerman edge. Whereas the Scots duo may be the pagans of bleep, this is generally sweeter but never less involving.

For the first time, guitars are pushed to a more prominent position, but without losing any of the organic feel of yore. The album sounds like a blissed-out Orb rediscovering tunes and then putting it all through a musical blender. There is something wondrous as melodies and patterns emerge from the sound collages that ensue from Capitol K’s random cut and paste methodology. What’s in this record? Snippets of lost voices, fairground trains, Arabic fragrances, cooing hymns, all lost in to the background. It’s like someone else telling you about the intimate bits of your life. Never has somebody else’s weird shit sounded like the fuzzy Sundays in your head. And I managed to review Capitol K without mentioning Aphex Twin. Yes!